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Al l i son , Wi l l i am TalbotBol shevi sm i n Engl i sh
l i te rature
UN IVERSIT ! O ! MAN ITOBA
BOLSHEVISM IN ENGLISH
LITERATURE
Being an Inaugural Lecture
B !
PRO ! ESSOR W ILLIAM TALBOT ALLISON , Ph .D . ,
O ! THE
Department of Eni sh
W in n z'
peg , 1921
Bolshevism in English Literature
UR ING the war many new words were added to our
language . An ingenious person in the old country made
a little dictionary of these terms , most of which were coined
in the trenches,but his book was published too soon ,
for it makes no mention of the pri z e tit- bit for the dic
tionary of the future , the word Bolshevism . Everyone of
to - day is familiar with this Russian noun which has now
winged its way into the remotest sections of the English
Speaking world . Owing to the frightful excesses of the
Bolshevists,it is a sinster and menacing term . Originally
the word was applied to a political theory , but with the
passing of the months it has become more and more
suggestive . It not only conjures up before us those pro
letarian ogres , Lenin and Trotsky , with their unwashed
swarm of commissaries stained with the blood of their
tens of thousands of victims , but it has also been domesti
cated in Canada , perhaps particularly in Winnipeg , and
has come to be applied by us to any gust of unrest ,passion for change, or opposition to the present order
of things . So fond have we become of this word out of
Russia that we are willing to apply it to almost any move
ment or doctrine which would sweep away old landmarks
and introduce a new state of aff airs either in politics,
in religion,in education , or in literature .
It is to several of the innovators or Bolshevists who have
figured in the history of English literature that I propose
to direct your attention to - day. These Lenins and Trotskys
of the world of letters committed no acts of violence
except in a linguistic way , but they were rebels against
convention , made a great noise in their day , stirred up
no end of controversy , set up soviets of their own , and ,in some cases , changed the whole current of English thought .The first Bolshevist in the annals of our literature was
John Lyly , who was rusticated from Oxford and after
wards distinguished himself as a playwright , poet and wit
4
in the days of the good ! ueen Bess . The most industrious
research has di scovered only a few grains of fact con
cern ing the life and personality of this Elizabethan genius .
We know that he was a K entish man , that he went to
Oxford in 1569, and was averse to the crabbed studies
of logic and philosophy . We also know that he began his
career as a Bolshevist by having a tilt with one of his
professors . -He' managed to achieve fame at the early
age of twenty - five , but of his subsequent life we are given
these meagre but pathetic items of information—that hewas a l ittle man , was married , and fond of tobacco .
”
Like Edmund Spenser , he fell on evil days because of the
meanness of the queen whom he had e ntertained by his
plays and wondrously flattered . In one of the letters
which he sent to Gloriana begging for a court position
as master of the revels , he breaks out in this petulant
fashion ! “Now I know not what crab took me for an
oyster,that in the midst of the sunshine of your gracious
aspect hath thrust a stone between the shells to eat meal ive that only live on dead hopes . This so
'
unds like
Bolshevism . It craves a sympathetic tear for the dis
appointed little man who produced one of the most
revolutionary books that was ever printed in England .
Lyly is known to fame as the inventor of Euphuism .
This word , which sounds something like Bolshevism ,
was derived from the titles of Lyly’
s two books ,“Euphues ,
the Anatomy of Wit , and Euphues and His England ,”
published respectively in 1580 and 1581 . They are very
dead now , but they made a furore in the court of ! ueen
Eliz abeth . A sort of novel , with a very thin thread of
narrative and almost no portrayal of character, the story
of Euphues,a young Athenian on a vi sit to England ,
was written in a style which broke through all the sober
conventions of the age . I t was a narrative built upon
antitheses and alliteration . It was crowded with far
fetched similies , with the queerest references to animals ,vegetables and minerals
,and was throughout witty ,
comical , and facetious . Nothing like it had ever been
seen by a generation which thirsted above all things for
novelty . This daring piece of literary innovation proved
5
so fascinating that everyone who aspired to cleverness
tried to talk Euphuistically . The ladies of the court
were as keen devotees to this new and outlandish fashion
of speech as Sidn ey and other gallants of the period .
To raise the Elizabethans another notch in your esteem ,
and at the same time to give you a sample of this Bolshe
vistic utterance, let me quote a brief extract from the
interminable pages of Lyly’
s“Euphues z
”
“Let not gentlewomen therefore make too much of their
painted sheath,let them not be so curious in their own
conceit,or so currish to their loyal lovers . When the black
crow ’s foot shall app ear in their eye , or the black ox
tread on their foot , when their beauty shall be like the
blasted rose,their wealth wasted , their bodies worn ,
their faces wrinkled , their fingers crooked , who like of
them in their age , who loved none in their youth ! If
you will be cherished when you be old , be courteous whi le
you be young ! i f you look for comfort in your hoary hairs ,be not co
'
!r when you have your golden locks ! if you would
be embraced in the waning of your bravery , be not squeam
ish in the waxing of your beauty ! i f you desire to be kept
lik e the roses when they have lost their coldr, smell sweet
as the rose doth in the bud ! i f you would be tasted for
old wine , be in the mouth a pleasant grape ! so shall
you be cherished for your courtesy , comforted for your
honesty , embraced for your amity , so shall you be preferred
with the sweet rose , and drunk with the pleasant wine .
”
Lyly intended his narrative to be a book for ladies .
In one of his most bri lliant antitheses he says ! “Euphues
had rather lye shut in a lady’
s casket than open in a
scholar ’s study . But the ladies of his day,who blushed
not to be able to parley Euphuism , must have spent
arduous hours in the study before they acquired the art
of spicing their conversa tion with alliterative balanced
sentences , with similes freighted with classical lore , and
with illustrations drawn from the mine , the forest and the
field . I fear that even fourth - year women undergraduates
of this university would reel under the mental strainif they were required to gossip euphuistically for a fort
6
There were those in the spacious days of great Elizabeth
who ridiculed this innovation . Shakespeare satirised it
through his character Don Armado of “Love ’s Labor ’s
Lost,
” but even imm ortal William himself fell at times
under its spell and borrowed countless fancies from Euphues .
At a later date Sir Walter Scott made Sir Piercie Shafton
an exponent of Euphuism . But let us not forget that for
a hundred years the public called for edition after edition
of “Euphues and His England ,
”and such great prose
writers as Dr . Samuel Johnson and Thomas Babington
Macaulay were indebted to it for the very basis of their
antithetic style .
As far as form went , Lyly tried to make all things new ,
but the next generation witnessed the rise of a literary
Bolshevist whose saturnine genius girded , not only at the
conventional form of English poetry , but at the subj ect
matter as well . John Donne is easily the greatest and most
influential innovator of the seventeenth century . He lived
in an age when men’
s conceptions of nature were under
going such a change that the very foundation of know
ledge seemed to be shaken . The new system of astronomy
introduced by Copernicus bewildered thinkers like Donne
and Milton,just as the theory of evolution in a later time
disturbed the faith of Tennyson and Matthew Arnold .
The perturbation of the poet Donne and his feeling of
distrust is expressed , quite simply for him , in these lines !
The new philosophy calls all in doubt ,The elements of fire is quite put out !The sun is lost , and th
’ earth , and no man’s wit
Can well direct him where to look for it .
And freely men confess that this world ’s spent ,When in the planets and the firmanent
They seek so many new .
Although in these verses Donne seems to be looking out
with annoyance into a swiftly changing world of thought,
he was himself an iconoclast of the most pronounced type .
Ben Jonson told William Drummond of Hawthornden thatalthough Donne was “ the best poet in the world for some
things,yet
,
“for not being understood , would perish .
”
7
He also observed that Donne , for not keeping accent ,deserved hanging .
” In these two criticisms Jonson reveals
to us the nature of Donne ’s literary Bolshevisrn . First of
all he had a perfect contempt for the easy- flowing verse
and sweet melodies of his contemporaries . Someone has
said that Donne wrote as if poetry had never been written
before . He cultivated a rough and obscure style , just because
he hated the mellifluous numbers of the conventional poet .
Lenin’
s hatred and contempt for the Romanofis could not
be more ntense than Donne’
s savage d'
sregard for Spenser
and Shakespeare . The only poet of his time with whom he
would have any dealings was Ben Jonson . This i s easy to
understand , for old Ben was always warring with his brother
bards , and was pretty much of a Bolshevist himself . In all
Donne ’s letters and writings which have come down to us
there is no mention of the poets of his time . He viewed them
all,with the single exception of rugged old Ben , with scorn
ful indiff erence . In his metrical experiments Donne was a
thoroughgoing revolutionist . Perhaps he deserved hanging
for not keeping accent , but he certainly introduced a new
spirit of freshness and emphasis into English poetry .
With regard to subject matter , John Donne was in a
new sense a realist . He banished from his verse the gods
and god esses,the shepherds and shepherdesses which had
been very ece ssary decorations of conventional poetry ,and in order to introduce vitality into his songs and satires
he was always reaching out for new images . It was out of
this passion for novelty that he shot up fireworks of conceit ,farfetched metaphors , and monstrous hyperboles which were
to bedevil English poetry for a whole century .
It is no wonder that this literary Bolshevist , who in his
early life was a libertine and in his later years Dean of St .
Paul’s and one of the most pious men of his time , founded a
school of poetry . Although none of his poems were published
in his lifetime,they were handed around in manuscript
and exerted an enormous influence over such poets as Carew ,
Crashaw,the two Herberts , Vaughan , Cowley , Suckling and
Dryden . These poets were not attracted to Donne simply
for his fresh invention but because of his vivid and caustic
wit . He had a soul intensely alive . He was interested both
i n the flesh and the Spirit . Love , death and the soul were his
favorite subject s,and on all these topics his great mind
struck out thoughts which had never been uttered before .
Donne ’s disinclination to do anything in a conventional
manner is shown in the fact that he prepared for the ministry
by a long course of dissipation . Again he made a runaway
match when he was married,and finally this old Bolshevist
of the seventeenth century excelled himself in unconven
tionality by the manner in which he prepared for death .
In his charming life of Donne , Isaac Walton tells that when
the poet perceived that he had not long to live he ordered
his shroud to be made . He dressed himself up in th is grue
some winding sheet,tying it in a knot at the top of his head
and at the soles of his feet . Then standing upright , with his
th in wh ite face peeking out , he had his full- length portrait
painted . When the picture was completed , he stood it at
the foot of his bed and gained much spiritual comfort by
gazing at it frequently as he quietly fortified himself for the
duel with death . Af ter he passed away , this picture servedas a
‘
model for a sculptor who figured Donne in white marble ,winding sheet and all . This statue escaped being destroyed
in the Great Fire of London . It is to be seen in St . Paul ’s
Cathedral and is one of the strangest monuments in the whole
world,but seems admirably suited to express the isolation
and originality of the supreme Bolshevi st of seventeenth
century English literature .
Coming down to the eighteenth century , we find that the
greatest innovating force was James Macpherson,a Scotch
schoolmaster who published a little collection of prose
poems which he declared were composed in the third century
by a Celtic bard called Ossian and had been handed down
by oral tradition among the Gaels of the north . In 1760 the
publication of this little volum e gave rise to a furious
controversy and to endless disputation . Dr . Johnson had
a lively dispute with Macpherson , whom he roundly declared
in his big bow-wow style to be an impostor and a hum bug who
had manufactured some stuff which was not worth the
printing . Macpherson was so angry at this trouncing from
the Great Cham of literature , that he threatened to thrash
Johnson on sight . The old dictator was so alarmed that he
9
bought a heavy oak cudgel with a knob on it as large as a
blood orange . The encounter, however , never came off , and
Johnson probably thought he had snufied out Macpherson's
bid for honest or rather dishonest fame .
In spite of the fact that Dr . Johnson saw no merit either
in Macp herson or his book , it was received at once with
great applause by many of the leading literary men of the
time . When Dr . Blair , the Edinburgh professor of rhetoric ,who wrote a lengthy and eulogistic dissertation on the
Oss ian book , asked Dr . Johnson whether he thought any
man of a modern age could have written such poems , the
dictator of English letters replied “! es sir ! many men ,
many women and many children .
“Sir,exclaimed he to
Sir Joshua Reynolds ,“a man might write such stufi forever ,
if he would abandon his mind to it .
” But even while Dr .
Johnson was expressing his disgust,another great English
poet , Thomas Gray , was going into ecstasies over the wild
and melancholy beauties of the Celtic bard . In a letter to
one Stonehewer, under date of June 29th , 1760 , he says of
some specimens of Ossian , which had been forwarded to him !“ I am gone mad about them I was so struck , so
ecstatic with their infinite beauty that I writ into Scotland
to make a thousand enquiries . Gray admired the poems
because he found them“full of nature and noble , wild
imagination ! Perhaps it was the romantic gloom of these
poems of the north that appealed most of all to Gray 's
melancholic soul . It is at least certain that their frequent
references to the melancholy of the mountains and the sob
of the sea along the lonely shore Opened his eyes to the
wildly picturesque in nature . Gray was the first Englishman
to appreciate the sublime beauty of Alpine scenery , and he
got this new vision through the medium of Celtic poetry .
In such a poem as “The Bard there is more than a touch of
that romantic feeling , that wild freedom which was after
wards to come to its full expression in the poetry of Byron
and Goethe .
Macpherson ’s dower of Celtic poetry to Europe was as
powerful as any influence that has been let loose in the
literary world in modern times . It fell with the thunder of
a charge of TNT into the circles of polite learning , among
0
those poets who still turned out their elegant couplets in
the style of Pope . There was in this Highland poetry a
new treatment of nature , a new passion for the past , a new
sentimentality , a new mysticism , a new’
contempt for form .
In the poetical world , nearly petrified by the restraints laid
upon it by Pope and Johnson , these Celtic rhapsodies must
have seemed the last word in radicalism , must have been
regarded as revolutionary in the extreme . Gray,Byron ,
Goethe , even Napoleon Buonaparte , went mad over this
collection of prose poems . In that celebrated story ,“The
Sorrows of Werther ,” which exerted such a tremendous
influence on all the young poets of Europe , Goethe writes !“Homer has been superseded in my heart by the divine
Ossian . Through what a world does this angelic bard carry
me !” So he proceeds in a long eulogy , which , of course ,caused his readers to clamor for this new- old wine of such
a mighty pulse . Soon all the fire - eyed poets of Germany
were chanting the exploits of Fingal and Ossian’
s addresses
to the sun and moon . Ossian ran like a prairie fire across
Europe , being translated into French , Italian , Spanish ,
Dutch , Polish and other languages with pecuniary results
which were extremely pleasing to canny James Macpherson .
It is hard for us to- day to appreciate the poetry of Ossian .
It seems to us rather thin gruel . But though it i s vague and
unsatisfying in subject matter , there is a wild something
about it that still has power to charm . For the sake of those
who do not have the Gaelic I wish to read a short passageor two in translation to give some idea of what this Bolshe
vistic poetry of the eighteenth century is like . In the follow
ing we find the element of mystery , the love of the Gael for
the days of old ,“Whence is the stream of years ! Whither do
they roll along ! Where have they hid in mist their many
colored sides ! I look into the times of old , but they seem dim
to Ossian ’
s eyes , like reflected moonbeams on a distant lake .
Here rise the red beams of war ! There silent dwells a feeble
race . They mark no years with their deeds as slow they pass
along . Dweller between the shields ! Thou that awak enest
the falling soul ! Descend from thy wall,harp of Cona ,
with thy voices three ! Come with that which kindles the
past ! rear the forms of old on their dark- brown years .”
I I
In the following pas sage nature plays an important part !
The sounds spread wide,the heroes rise like the breaking
of a blue- rolling wave . They stood on the heath , like oaks
with all their branches round them when they echo to the
frost,and their withered leaves are rustling to the wind !
High Cromla’
s head of cloud i s gray . Morning trembles on
the half - enlightened ocean . The blue mist swims slowly by
and hides the sons of Inisfall!
As might be imagined , there are many descriptions of
battles in Macpherson ’s Ossian . But even in the midst of a
battle piece the poet avails himself of natural imagery .
Here is a specimen extract !
Like the murmur of waters the race of Utherne came down .
Starno led the battle , and Swaran of the stormy isles . They
looked forward from iron shields like Cruth- loda , fiery
eyed , when he looks from behind the darkened moon ,and
strews his signs on night . The foe is met by Turther’
s
stream . They heave like ridgy waves . Their echoing
strokes are mixed . Shadowy death flies over the host .
There are clouds of hail with squally winds in their skirts .
Their showers are roaring together . Below them swells the
dark- rolling deep .
”
The revolt against classicism was greatly furthered by
such poetry as Macpherson ’s Ossian , but it was not until
the French Revolution had energised the thought of Europe,
that literary Bolshevism , at least as far as English poetry
is concerned , entered upon its golden age . Its leading
exponents were Wordsworth , Byron and Shelley , but the
greatest of these was Wordsworth . The year 1798 must
remain forever memorable , because it witnessed the pub
lication of a slender volume entitled “Lyrical Ballads . ”
It is safe to say that this book would never have been born
had William Wordsworth not spent many months in France
when the revolution was laun ched . The young English
poet was on fire with zeal for what he deemed a holy cause .
In fact he was so upli fted by his new vision of the brother
hood of man that he magnanimously off ered his sword to
revolutionary France if the Girondist party would make him
12
commander- in - chief of its forces . Wordsworth always had
a large opinion of his own powers and he had no sense of
hum or . It makes us smile to think of him as a leader of
the sans culotte Trotskyites of Paris . Fortunately for the
future of English poetry and for the success of the Revolution as well , his off er was not accepted , and his life was
probably saved by a peremptory order from his uncle
that he should return home at once and let the French
manage their own revolution .
As everyone knows,the subsequent progress of the revolu
tion disgusted both Wordsworth and Coleridge . In a political
sense they became reactionaries , but they were never able
to shake off its liberalising influence . It was that new regard
for the rights and the importance of the humblest son of
Adam that led Wordsworth to plan a new theory of poetry,
the first fruits of which are to be found in the Lyrical
B allads . In the preface to that volume he argued that poetry
should be written in the simplest kind of language and shoulddescribe the scenes
,incidents and characters of lowly life .
What Wordsworth really rebelled against was the habitual
employment by poets of certain conventional figures of
speech which had dropped out of prose style,and had come
to be regarded as the exclusive property of poetic diction .
This was the revolution that he attempted in poetic style .
Why,he would say , call~summer breezes “ June
’
s Spicy gales ,”
the birds,
“the feathered choir” or “ songsters of the wood ,
a stream,
“a purling rill ,” a country girl ,
“a nymph ,
” her
lover “a swain,
” and her home “a bower . ” And in choosing
characters,why people the world of poetry with lords and
ladies fair and not include waggoners , idiot boys , leech
gatherers,seven- year- old girls , mad mothers and old beggars !
Homely themes had been used since the middle of the
eighteenth century—witness the poems of Shenstone , Cowperand Burns— but Wordsworth introduced a new treatment
of the great primary passions by showing the influence of
nature upon the common life of man .
But how strange to readers brought up on the tinselled and
aristocratic poetry of the eighteenth century must have been
13
such a rhymed story as Goody Blake and Harry
with thi s low- life opening stanz a !
Oh ! what 's the matter ! What ’s the matter !
What is’
t that ails young Harry Gill !
That evermore his teeth they chatter ,Chatter
,chatter
,chatter still .
Of waistcoats Harry has no lack ,
Good duflie grey , and flannel fine !He has a blanket on his back ,
And coats enough to smother nine .
And how disgusted the critics were when they read the
sentimental story of the old age of Simon Lee , the debilitated
huntsman !
His hunting feats have him bereft
Of his right eye , as you may see !
And then , what limbs those feats have left
To poor old Simon Lee !
He has no son , he has no child ,
His wife ! an aged woman ,
Lives with him near the waterfall ,Upon the vi llage common .
And he is lean and he is sick ,His little body ’s half awry ,
His ankles they are swollen and thick !His legs are thin and dry .
When he was young he little knew
Of husbandry or tillage !And now he ’s forced to work , though weak
The weakest in the village .
It was such drivel as this,which appears in Wordsworth
’
s
poetry often on the same page wi th stanz as of the highest
elevation of tone and vigor of thought , that drew down upon
him detraction and abuse which lasted for a whole generation .
Like so many other revolutionists,Wordsworth was set in
his way ! he was remarkably self- centred ! he felt that he was
as much inspired as the prophet Isaiah . So he kept on
writing in simple numbers about simple pe0 p1e . We may be
0
14
glad that he was not always true to his theory,as such
sublime productions as his glorious “Ode on the Intimations”
and his “Lines Written Above Tintern Abbey” prove,but
we ought to rejoice that this great hum anist had the courage
of his convictions and by his rebellion against convention
brought English poetry into the heart and bosom of everyday humanity .
While Wordsworth’
s books were almost a dead loss to the
author, the students of Oxford and Cambridge were putting
on relay races to London on the dates of publication to see
which school of learning could have first possession of the
latest installment of “Childe Harold ’ s Pilgrimage .
” Byron
was all the rage , while Wordsworth was disregarded . Byron
was a highly spectacular figure , and seemed to the young
men of Europe , particularly on the continent , to be the
incarnation of the revolutionary spirit , but it was the quiet
old gray figure of the lake country,he who mildly walked
his twenty miles a day,talking to the dalesmen and Lucy
Grays as he ambled along , who had the power to change
human thought and was the real voice of democracy .
Af ter his self- imposed exile in Italy,Byron fell foul of every
thing British ! in satire after satire he laughed at morality
andmocked at nearly everything that Englishmen held sa cred .
He “bore the pageant of a bleeding heart across Europe ,making himself the melancholy hero of nearly every narrative
poem he wrote ! he was the most melodious of all those who
suffered from the fashionable and contagious poetic disease
of Weltschmerz ! but the noble lord was not really a democrat .
Let us give him the credit , however , of taking a sincere
interest in the struggles for independence on the part of
subj ect peoples who groaned under the sway of the tyrant .
During his residence in Italy he greatly encouraged Mazziniand other patriots in their arduous task to unite their fellow
countrymen and make Ita ly free . There are some critics
who have been harsh enough to describe the poetry of him
who wrote that glorious lyric of freedom ,
“The Isles of
Greece,
” as nothing but a brazen noise , but it cannot be
denied that Lord Byron perished in his early manhood
because he went to aid the Greeks in their fight for inde
p endence . And the fact that Byron ’s works have been
16
a number of these booklets in Barnstaple . Healy was
promptly arrested and was sent to j ail for six months .Nothing daunted , Shelley sent little toy boats out to sea
freighted with his precious pamphlets . He even went so
far as to send up toy balloons to circulate his suggestions
for the amelioration of the woes of the world . Two years
after his marriage to Harriet Westbrook he met Mary
Godwin , the step - daughter of the radical philosopher ,William Godwin , whose book
“Political Justice” was
being eagerly studied by the reds of London . Shelley was
drawn to Mary Godwin . She was an atheist , too , and she
looked upon the marriage ceremony as an outworn
convention . When he proposed that they should repair to
Paris and live together , she gladly consented . Perhaps
nothing shows the unpractical nature of Shelley more than
his astonishing folly in writing to discarded Harriet ,asking her to come over to Paris and pay them a nice
long visit . He could not see why his wife declined the
invitation . Two years later , in 1816 , poor Harriet drowned
herself . Shelley felt very badly , because he was one of the
kindest and most generous of men . He was really quite
irritated because his wife had demonstrated that his
Bolshevistic theory of free love would not work . Mary
now suffered a relapse to convention,and suggested that
they should go through the ceremony of marriage . Shelley
was so dej ected that‘he consented . They lived together
happily enough until the poet was drowned six years
later,when his sail boat capsiz ed in a storm in the Gulf
of Spezzia .
Now a word or two as to Shelley ’ s teachings . I have
alrea dy indicated that he was firmly of the opinion that
legal marriage was not a proper social institution . Under
the English marriage law he believed that woman lived in
a state of servitude . But if Shelley had had his way he
would have changed the whole social system . He hated
the established order . He abhorred kings , priests , and
war . Wherever he looked , the fruits of government
seemed to him to be poverty , ignorance, hopelessness in
vast bodies of mankind . He adopted the doctrine of the
perfectability of man and believed that society should be
17
made over in such a way that virtue would prevail and
happiness be secured . What chiefly angered the few
English readers who bought his poems in his lifetime
was his outspoken atheism . All through his longer poem s
he rages against Christianity as an ecclesiastical system ,
although he professes admiration for its founder . Browning
once said that if Shelley had lived longer he would have
become a Christian . I doubt this , however , owing to his
disbelief in God . He called the god of current theology
an “ almighty fiend , but it must be said of Shelley that
he showed the spirit of love toward the meanest creatures ,even to insects . Enjoying a large private income , he took
the keenest delight in helping his less fortunate fellows .
In a spirit of utmost kindness , he worked among the poor
and visited the sick . He loved goodness , hated materialism ,
and preached the duty of an unworldly life . If all Bolshe
vists were as pure in life as the poet Shelley , Europe
would not be in the dreadf ul condition that it is to - day .
It is quite natural that we should pass on from Shelley
to Browning , for in his youth the rugged poet of the smooth
Victorian era wrote enthusiastic verses in praise of the“ Sun - Treader It is also noteworthy that Browning ’ s
sole formal work in prose is an essay on Shelley . But
Browning 's father was a banker , and home influence , no
doubt , provided an excellent antidote for the violent
radicalism of the author of The Revolt of Islam .
”
Browning caught some of Shelley ’ s lyric fire , but he im
bibed neither his clear style nor his red philosophy . He
is really the literary son of John Donne . The elder
Browning had Donne’
s poems in his library , and from
his boyhood the author of “Sordello gave a great deal of
systematic attention to the cryptic satires of the Dean
of St . Paul’
s . If love , death and the soul were the favorite
topics of Donne , can we not say the same thing about the
poems of Browning ! The psychological subtlety and the
dramatic terseness of his seventeenth century master are
faithfully reproduced in the poems of the Victorian . Brown
ing derived a great deal of good from Donne,but we owe
a grudge to the Dean of St . Paul ’ s because he is responsible
for the grotesque features , the dark utterances , the puzzle
18
poems of the son and heir of his invention . Mr . G . K .
Chesterton says that “Sordello is the finest compliment
that a poet could possibly pay to the intelligence of his
readers . This poem is Browning in his most chaeotic
style . There were only two lines in it that I understood,
”
said Tennyson ,“and they were both lies ! they were the
opening and the closing lines ,‘Who will may hear Sor
dello ’s story told’
and ‘Who would has heard'
Sordello’
s
story Carlyle remarked that after Jane had read
it she was unable to discover whether Sordello was a
man , a city or a book . That one frightfully obscure poem
would have established Brownings reputation as a literary
Bolshevist , but during the whole extent of his long working
life he continued to snap his fingers at the conventional
style of writing poetry . With all his faults we love him
still . Browning is a very great poet , but he would have
been a greater if he had avoided such an oxo- cube style
as we find in these lines , wherein he discusses color in
art !
Hobbs hints blue—straight he turtle eats .
Nobbs prints blu%claret crowns his cup .
Nokes outdares Stokes in azure feats
Both gorge . Who fished the murex up !
What porridge had John K eats !
Another Victorian who refused to alter even his crudest
lines was Walt Whitman , father of the free verse school
of the literary Bolshevists of America . In his “Song of
Myself,
” Whitman says , very truly !
I too am not a bit tamed—I too am untranslatableI sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world .
There are many who recognize in Whitman the true
poet of democracy , the most original and most vigorous
singer that the United States has yet produced . In view
of the fact that he wrote that wonderful and touching
tribute to Abraham Lincoln ,
“0 Captain , my Captain ,
we can forgive him for his rank egotism , and what he
himself calls his “prophetical screams ,”but he has very
much to answer for in the sins committed by his Bolshevist
brood,the free verse poets whose raucous voices are sound
19
ing everywhere in the United States to- day . They call
themselves imagists , symbolists , cubists , and other names
too numerous to mention , but they are all rebels against
the old- fashioned poetry which accepts the restrictions
of a restrained and ordered beauty . Not all of these
contemporary poems are worthless . It may be heterodox
for me to say so , but I must confess that I have read the
works of such poe ts as Amy Lowell , Carl Sandburg ,Edgar Lee Masters , and Vachel Lindsay with much
interest and some admiration . To give you a sample
of present- day literary Bolshevism , I am going to conclude
my lecture by reading an original and touching poem by
Vachel Lindsay , who , by the way , is a welcome visitor in
many American colleges , where he chants his own poems
to fascinated audiences of students !
GENERAL BOOTH ENTERS INTO HEAVEN .
! To be sung to the tune of“The Blood of the Lamb
”with
indicated instruments . !
Booth led boldly with his big bass drum .
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb !
The saints smiled gravely , and they said ,“He ’s come
.
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb !
!Bass drums!Walk ing lepers followed , rank on rank ,
Lurching bravos from the ditches dank ,
Drabs from the alleyways and drug- fiends paleMinds still passion - ridden , soul powers frail !Vermin- eaten saints with mouldy breath
,
Unwashed legions with the ways of death
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb !
Every slum had sent its half - a - score
The round wo'
rld over—Booth had groaned for more.
Every banner from the wide world fl ies
Bloomed with glory and transcendent dyes . !Banjos!Big- voiced lasses made their ban j os bang !Tranced , fanatical , they shrieked and sang ,
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb !
20
Hallelujah ! It was queer to see
Bull- necked convicts with that land make free !
Loons with bazoos blowing blare , blare , blare
On , on upward through the golden air .
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb !
!Bass drums slower and softer!
Booth died blind , and still by faith he trod ,Eyes still dazzled by the ways of God .
Booth led boldly and he looked the chief !
Eagle countenance in sharp relief,
Beard a—flying , air of high commandUnabated in that holy land . !Flutes!
Jesus came from out the Court - House door ,Stretched his hands above the passing poor .
Booth saw not , but led his queer ones there
Round and round the mighty Court - House square .
! et in an instant all that blear reviewMarched on spotless , clad in raiment new .
The lame were straightened,withered limbs uncurled
And blind eyes opened ona new sweet world .
!Bass drums louder and faster!
Drabs and vixens in a flash made whole !
Gone was the weasel- head , the snout , the j owl !Sages and sibyls now , and athletes clean ,
Rulers of empires, and of forests green !
The hosts were sandalled and their wings were fire
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb !
But their noise played havoc with the angel - choir .
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb !
!General chorus , tambourines—all instruments in full blast!
Oh , shout Salvation ! it was good to see
K ings and princes by the Lamb set free .
The banj os rattled and the tambourines
Jing- j ing- j ingled in the hands of queens !
!Reverently sun g , no instruments!
21
And when Booth halted by the curb for prayer
He saw his master through the flag- filled air .
Christ came gently with a robe and crown
For Booth the soldier, while the throng knelt down .
He saw K ing Jesus—they were face to face ,And he knelt a -weeping in that holy place .
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb !
